Will Jeff Seeney be the Next Premier of Queensland?

In one of those great journalistic stand bys, the article stated that "Mr Seeney did not rule out taking on the role of interim Premier until a winner is declared in Ashgrove".

I don't think this is likely at all. The idea that Jeff Seeney must become Premier if the result in Ashgrove is unclear ignores that it is normal constitutional practice for a period to elapse between polling day and the swearing in of a new government.

Indeed the last two changes of government occurred around two weeks after the election, 13 days in the case of Peter Beattie in 1998 and 16 days for Rob Borbidge after the Mundingburra by-election in 1996. Even Wayne Goss had a delay of five days after winning a clear victory at the 1989 election.

The table below sets out in detail the number of days between elections and the swearing in of new governments for most changes of government in Australia since 1970. The average delay between an election and the swearing in of the new ministry is 9 days. That means it is perfectly normal for the defeated government to carry on in caretaker mode for more than a week after its defeat.

Number of Days between Winning an Election and Forming Government

Jurisdiction

Leader

Party

Year

Days delay

Federal

Gough Whitlam

Labor

1972

3

Federal

Bob Hawke

Labor

1983

6

Federal

John Howard

Liberal

1996

9

Federal

Kevin Rudd

Labor

2007

9

New South Wales

Neville Wran

Labor

1976

13

New South Wales

Nick Greiner

Liberal

1988

6

New South Wales

Bob Carr

Labor

1995

10

New South Wales

Barry O'Farrell

Liberal

2011

2

Victoria

Jeff Kennett

Liberal

1992

3

Victoria

Steve Bracks

Labor

1999

32 / 4

Victoria

Ted Bailieau

Liberal

2010

5

Queensland

Wayne Goss

Labor

1989

5

Queensland

Rob Borbidge

National

1996

16

Queensland

Peter Beattie

Labor

1998

13

Western Australia

Richard Court

Liberal

1993

10

Western Australia

Geoff Gallop

Labor

2001

6

Western Australia

Coiln Barnett

Liberal

2008

17

South Australia

Dean Brown

Liberal

1993

3

South Australia

Mike Rann

Labor

2002

22

Tasmania

Ray Groom

Liberal

1992

16

Tasmania

Jim Bacon

Labor

1998

17

Northern Territory

Clare Martin

Labor

2001

9

The clearer the change of government, the more likely that the new government will take office as soon as possible in a symbolic statement of intent. The shortest delay was last March in NSW when Barry O'Farrell was sworn in as Premier on the Monday after election day. However, with the result not clear, O'Farrell was sworn in as a two-person ministry pending the finalisation of the result, a tactic also adopted by Gough Whitlam three days after winning the 1972 Federal election. The two person Whitlam-Barnard ministry is famous for the number of adminstrative decisions in made in two weeks.

Other governments who chose to take office very quickly were the Kennett government in Victoria in 1992, and the Brown government in South Australia in 1993. The election result in both states was predictable well in advance and arrangements were made before hand to allow for a quick changeover, as also occurred with the O'Farrell government. It may be the LNP would have liked to emulate these quick changeovers, but that may not be possible given the decision of Campbell Newman to try and enter Parliament through such a hard to win seat as Ashgrove.

The longer delays all took place following unclear elections results. The swearing in of Neville Wran and Bob Carr in NSW were both delayed while the final counting of results determined the one seat majority of both governments. The Beattie government's appointment in 1998 was similarly delayed by an unclear result, as was Colin Barnett's in Western Australia in 2008.

The two longest delays were the swearing of Steve Bracks in Victoria in 1999 and Mike Rann in South Australia in 2002. In the case of Bracks, the Kennett government lost its majority on election night, but the death of a sitting MP on polling day in the marginal seat of Frankston East meant the fate of government was left on the result of the supplementary election four weeks later. When Labor won Frankston East, the Independents holding the balance of power announced their support for Labor and Steve Bracks was sworn in as Premier four days later, or 32 days after the general election.

Mike Rann's arrival as South Australian Premier came the old fashioned way, after the first meeting of Parliament. Rann had arranged a deal to appoint conservative Independent Peter Lewis as Speaker. Liberal Premier Rob Kerin refused to resign, instead exercising his constitutional right to test his support at the first sitting of Parliament. Once Labor used its numbers to elect Lewis Speaker ahead of the Liberal nominee, Rann was sworn in as Premier.

Even in 1996, when it was clear that Labor had lost the Mundingburra by-election on the night, the changeover awaited the finalisation of the Mundingburra count and the decision of Independent Liz Cunningham on who she would support.

So the lesson here is this. If the LNP win the election on 24 March but Campbell Newman's position in Ashgrove is unclear, there is no requirement for a rushed change of government that would see Jeff Seeney temporarily sworn in as Premier. The swearing in can await the ten days for the finalisation of postal votes in Ashgrove. Even before then, almost all of the votes in Ashgrove will have been counted by the Thursday after polling day, with only a handful of outstanding postal votes.

If it is clear that Campbell Newman has not won Ashgrove, then we would be entering novel constitutional territory. Newman denies he would try to enter parliament via a by-election if he loses Ashgrove. It is common in Canada for a party leader to be appointed Premier pending victory in a by-election, but is so constitutionally novel in Australia that I think it highly unlikely a Governor would agree to do this.

There is no requirement in the Queensland Constitution that a Minister, including the Premier, be a member of Parliament. However, it is a convention of responsible government that ministers must be accountable to Parliament, and if anyone tried to serve as a Queensland Minister for anything other than a short period while not an MP, they would find themselves in the Supreme Court facing a case they would struggle to win.

Compare the situation with the recent delay in the appointment of Bob Carr as Foreign Minister. He was not appointed a minister until after his appointment to the Senate, even though the Constitution clearly would have allowed it. Something similar happened with the appointment of Michael Lavarch as Attorney-General in 1993 after his election was delayed by the death of a candidate.

Once again assuming for the moment Newman does go down the route of contesting a by-election, then the LNP parliamentary caucus would have to meet and elect someone to become Premier pending the arrival of Newman in Parliament. One assumes that would be current Parliamentary Leader Jeff Seeney.

If Newman loses Ashgrove and does as he has promised, retire from politics, then the LNP would have to meet and elect a new leader to become Premier. That may not necessarily be Jeff Seeney, as there are several others with leadership aspirations. Given most of the seats the LNP will gain come from south-east Queensland, the new members may well prefer to back a city based LNP member such as Tim Nicholls, or turn to former Leaders John-Paul Langbroek or Lawrence Springborg.

So if I were a betting man, I wouldn't be putting my money on Jeff Seeney as the next Premier of Queensland.

Comments

Suspect that this headline was just designed to scare people back into the ALP fold. A prospect that would not disappoint the author. The bias of much of the Qld media in this election has been extraordinary IMO!

COMMENT: Your opinion is inane. Try reading the article, even just the first three paragraphs.

Another transition to add to your list would be the Tasmanian case of Bartlett's second period in office. The Labor Party lost its majority at the House of Assembly election of 20 March 2010, but negotiations for what ended up as a Labor Party and Greens coalition government were not completed until a month later on 21 April 2010. This would make it the second longest period on your list.

Antony I know a delay can occur at an electrate when the death of a person on the ballot. Can there be a delay in an electorate due to natural events? Sitting here in Townsville we have some flooding and Cairns is worse, so several seats may be affected on polling day. Can the poll be delayed on safety grounds? Has this occured before such as a cyclone or bushfire in another state or federal polls? If safety was an issue say widespread flooding, who's call is it. the QEC on police advise? Just some thoughts.

COMMENT: The Commissioner has the power to defer polling to another day. It is a power that has been used in the past. I particularly remember polling being deferred for two days in North Queensland at the 1993 Federal election due to flooding. I do not know the mechanism by which this occurs, but you will hear about it if it is happening.

I don't think its very nice to call someone's opinion inane.
I thought Voice from the North had a point - the technicalities of whether or not there is a need for a 'stand in' Premier is irrelevant if the media just want to get a rise out of people.

COMMENT: Again, read the article. A detailed article on the process involved in changing government hardly qualifies as trying to get a rise out of people.

Even longer delay in SA in 1968, Antony - 48 days. Election was on 3rd March and resulted in 19-all with one independent, Tom Stott, who had made it pretty clear that he would support the LCL. However, Don Dunstan refused to stand down until Parliament was called, and this didn't happen till 20th April, when Stott was elected Speaker, supported an Opposition motion, and Dunstan resigned. Looks like petulance by Dunstan, but he was making the point that Labor had got a majority of the popular vote and had only been robbed of office by the "Playmander". Copies of the various memos to the Governor advising him on his "constitutional duty" are in the first edition of Fajgenbaum and Hanks, Australian Constitutional Law, pp 71-4. (I've kept that since my student days because there are so many useful details in it that were dropped from later editions of Hanks.)

COMMENT: I deliberately didn't go into that one because it was not relevant. I did not deal with Robin Gray's refusal to resign in Tasmania in 1989 for the same rerason. I was trying to stick to relatively straightforward changes of government.

I wonder why hardly anyone in the media refers to Mr Newman as the Qld Opposition Leader. There's nothing in the Qld Constitution about the Opposition Leader having to be a member of Parliament, is there?

COMMENT: Leader of the Opposition is not a constitutional or executive position, it is a parliamentary position. As Campbell Newman is not a member of Parliament, he cannot be recognised by the Parliament as Leader of the Opposition. The rules on that one are defined by the Parliament.

Interesting point about the Qld Constitution. There is no explicit obligation for a Minister to be a Member of the Legislative Assembly, as you say. You are also right this is mere convention. A Premier Newman could indeed sit outside the Parliament yet inside the Cabinet, but politics would no doubt preclude this option, at least as a long term one.

(A short term parachute is marvellous speculation but hardly realistic given Campbell Newman’s unambiguous statements.)

However ... The Constitution several provisions that **imply** Ministers are MLAs: see sections 23, 26(2)(c), and 46(1).

It is at least arguable the 2001 consolidation of the Constitution wrought a substantive change, maybe unintended, that Ministers must be elected members of the Legislative Assembly. (The 2001 consolidation was executed by public servants, and who knows, they may have been insufficiently sensitive to this tiny, tiny detail.)

Admittedly this is remote, but it is an argument I'd like played out in full!

COMMENT: As I said, a Minister being in Parliament is not specificically mentioned in the Constitution, but if someone were to try and be a Minister or Premier for more than an interim period without being a member of Parliament, the conventions of responsible government that a Minister must be responsible to Parliament would be open to enforcement by the Supreme Court. In certain circumstances the courts will enforce constituional conventions, and a Minister using executive authority for an extended period without being in Parliament would be one situation.

However, I suspect the matter is entirely hypothetical as anyone who tried would be politically foolish.

Great blog Antony as always, and some sound advice for the LNP.
Just a quick question unrelated to the QLD election; if WA have 4 year terms, why is their poll not till March 2013 when the last election was Sept 2008?

COMMENT: The election being held in September 2008 meant the four year term started in January 2009. If the election had been held before September 2008, the four year term would have begun in January 2008. That's how WA parliamentary terms are defined in the WA constitution.